Persons are asking AI to recreate the identical picture time and again, with every iteration drifting additional and farther from the unique.
The outcomes are typically amusing, typically unsettling. In some circumstances, the photographs utterly shape-shift into loopy summary types. In others, facial options are wildly exaggerated.
One of the crucial viral pictures is of actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson replicated a staggering 101 occasions.
someone on Reddit advised ChatGPT to duplicate a picture of The Rock with out altering something 100 occasions over pic.twitter.com/IcRgmWHCWK
— Kristi Yamaguccimane (@TheWapplehouse) Might 3, 2025
Whereas the primary few iterations intently resembled the unique photograph, subsequent variations noticed Johnson’s options morph and warp, finally changing into completely summary.
ChatGPT prompted to “create the precise duplicate of this picture, don’t change a factor” 74 occasions pic.twitter.com/u6E8aVThy2
— web corridor of fame (@InternetH0F) Might 1, 2025
I attempted the “Create the precise duplicate of this picture, don’t change a factor.” development. pic.twitter.com/xcAcsvBRJp
— Rish Agarwal (@rish404) April 30, 2025
So what’s happening underneath the hood? It’s primarily a results of how AI fashions are educated and the way they encode and reconstruct pictures.
When an AI is requested to recreate a picture, it doesn’t merely copy and paste the unique pixels. As a substitute, it breaks the picture down into a fancy set of options and patterns, which it then tries to reassemble primarily based on its understanding of what the picture ought to appear to be.
Nonetheless, this course of is inherently imperfect and introduces small errors or deviations every time. Because the picture is repeatedly fed again into the AI, these deviations compound, resulting in more and more distorted or surprising outcomes.
It’s a bit like taking part in a visible recreation of “phone” or “whispers,” the place every message you whisper to the following individual introduces new options.
Nonetheless, AI’s aberrations may additionally reveal one thing in regards to the biases and assumptions baked into these fashions. For instance, some pictures appear to magnify facial options or create a hotter, extra orange-tinted coloration palette.
Customers additionally seen that eyebrows develop into extremely exaggerated – nearly painted on within the model of social media filters. As for the orange tint, some speculate that hotter tints are most well-liked in pictures and thus are extra widespread within the coaching information.
Actually, although, we do not know what’s occurring contained in the immense “black field” that’s in the present day’s largest frontier fashions.
However within the meantime, social media customers appear to be having loads of enjoyable with the surreal, usually disturbing outcomes of repeated recursive AI picture technology.
Tendencies involving AI, like we lately noticed with AI motion figures, have lately taken off on social media, with 1000’s of individuals getting concerned throughout X, Reddit, TikTok, and Instagram.
One quipped, “I drained the ocean replicating my picture 100 occasions.” To not be a buzzkill, but it surely’s an excellent level.
